27/04: Eastern Market Kite Aerial Photography

Sunday, April 10, 2011:
It was a beautiful, breezy day, so I had to get out for some Kite Aerial Photography (KAP). I went to Eastern Market (which is the location of Detroit's Farmer's Market on Saturdays). I struggled against turbulent ground wind to get my Flowform kite airborne. A passerby--Johnny--took an interest in what I was doing and came over to talk to me (and ask for money to get something to eat). He offered to help me launch the kite. After several attempts, I was about ready to give up on the location. However, Johnny was eager to see the kite aloft, so I tried one more time and was finally able to coax it up above the ground turbulence.

The wind was quite gusty, even up high, so I waited a while to see if it would be stable enough for the camera. Up to this point, I hadn't said anything to Johnny about a camera. When I was feeling confident enough with the kite, I said, "Now comes the fun part." "What's the fun part?" asked Johnny. "Putting a camera up there," I replied. "How ya gonna do that?" So I proceeded to show him.

With Johnny's help, I got my KAP rig on the kite line, the camera in the rig and then the whole thing aloft. All was going well, but then I had some scary moments when gusts of wind played havoc with the kite, so I brought it back in after a few minutes of aerial photography.

Johnny was flabergasted by the whole experience. I can't even count how many times he said, "You have made my day!" Thank you, Johnny, for your help and I'm glad I was able to brighten your day.